1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to network services and systems, and more particularly to systems and methods for transforming legacy devices from a legacy environment to a virtualized cloud environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditional desktop delivery models are based on a large number of distributed PCs executing operating system and desktop applications. Managing traditional desktop environments is incredibly challenging and costly. Tasks like installations, configuration changes, security measures, etc. require time-consuming procedures and dedicated deskside support. These distributed desktops are typically underutilized, resulting in low return on investment for these assets. Further, the distributed computing model for desktops also creates a security concern as sensitive information could be compromised with stolen laptops or PCs.
Desktop virtualization, which moves computation to a data center, allows users to access their applications and data using stateless “thin-client” devices and therefore alleviates some of the problems of traditional desktop computing. The basic concept of desktop virtualization is based on moving an operating system (OS) and application execution from local (at the user) device to a remote data center. The end user device becomes a lightweight computer that handles only a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor (as well as locally attached devices such as scanners and printers). Connectivity between the end-user device and desktop OS executing in the data center is handled using remoting protocols.
Enterprises can now leverage the flexibility and cost-benefits of running users' desktops on virtual machines hosted at the data center to enhance business agility and reduce business risks, while lowering total cost of operations (TCO). Recent research and development of the cloud computing paradigm opens new possibilities of mass hosting of desktops and providing them as a service.
Cloud computing is becoming an attractive option for providing desktop as a service. Some of the advantages include more economical, less operational expense, less risk of technology becoming obsolete, more access from anywhere from any devices, better data security (data on the server), and no management cost. However, there are existing legacy desktops that have applications, user personalization and data that have to be assessed and migrated to the new desktop in the cloud. Transformation of legacy systems to desktop clouds as well as proper capacity provisioning is a challenging problem. The desktop cloud needs to be appropriately designed and provisioned to offer low response time and a good working experience to desktop users while optimizing back-end resource usage and therefore minimizing provider's costs.
In cloud computing, services and computing resources are delivered to customers over the Internet from a service provider who owns and operates the cloud. Some of the characteristics of a cloud offering include dynamic scaling of infrastructure based on application needs, flexible usage based pricing, rapid service provisioning, multiple tenants coexisting on the same infrastructure and standardized offering capable of being subscribed to by a service offering catalog. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a cloud delivered service that includes resources delivered as a service including servers, network, memory, CPU, storage, etc. Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a natural evolution of virtual desktop paradigm whereby desktops would be delivered as a service from a Desktop Cloud. DaaS provides benefits without the costs or risks of owning and managing physical resources and the added benefit of accessing desktops and desktop applications from any device at any location.
Customers who need a large number of desktops for their employees are no longer required to provision all of the required resources, such as servers and storage, but can transfer this task to a desktop provider and focus on business critical tasks instead. A desktop provider uses the concept of cloud computing to deliver a large number of desktops to its customers. A desktop cloud is simply a set of physical resources (such as storage, servers, networking gear, etc.) together with virtualization, connection brokering, and management software allowing for remote access to large numbers of desktops (potentially tens or hundred of thousands).
Desktop virtualization has several advantages over the typical “fat-desktop” approach. Management costs of the solution are significantly lower because operating system images, applications, and data are no longer installed on a large number of distributed systems but in a well controlled data center. This improves manageability of the system as well as data and application security. Moreover, since the local device is stateless it is very easy to troubleshoot and replace thus on-site labor is significantly reduced. The new desktop delivery model offers significant advantages. Due to effects of the economies of scale, the desktop cloud provider can optimize resource usage among large numbers of customers and therefore minimize unit cost of desktop delivery. Customers minimize exposure to rapid technology changes since they are subscribing to a desktop delivery service rather than purchasing technology.
Full realization of this paradigm requires further research. Important challenges still remain and include development of management approaches for scalable hosting of a very large number of virtual machines. Since the number of desktops is very large, standard management techniques developed for virtualized systems with server work-loads are not directly applicable. Another challenge is efficient graphics remoting which is a prerequisite to remote desktop access over wide area networks. In addition, transformation of legacy desktops to the cloud paradigm is an extremely difficult task. This is due to the scale and ubiquity of desktops in the enterprise as well as due to the significant complexity of desktop applications.